Acca Insurance – Get Money Back On Losing Accumulators

Accumulators have always been a popular type of bet in the UK as they offer the chance for a big payday from a relatively small stake – in January one lucky punter landed a 14-leg acca which paid out a whopping £70k on his original stake of £5.

Because of their popularity, more and more bookies have started to offer money back offers on losing accumulators. Often referred to as ‘acca insurance’ these promotions offer money back (usually in the form of a free bet) if your bet loses by just one leg.

Whilst none of the offers are going to make you a millionaire, these promos certainly help take the sting off missing a big score by a single result, and definitely add value to your bets. As they all tend to have a maximum value of around £25 (sometimes £50) it’s wise to split up any accas for more than this over multiple bookies.

Football Accumulator Insurance

It should come as no suprise to hear that many acca insurance offers revolve around football. For this reason we’ve separated the football only acca offers from other sports and compiled them in the list below, along with a quick summary of their terms.

Cash Acca Insurance (5+ Legs)

On selected pre-match markets, place an acca with at least 5 legs (min odds 1/2 per leg) and if just one leg loses, you could get a cash refund up to £10. If your bet wins, you could get a bonus of up to 100%.

New and existing customers. Minimum 5 legs, minimum odds 1/2 per leg. Applies to pre-match bets on Match Result, Both Teams to Score, Match Result & Both Teams to Score, Half-Time/Full-Time, Total Goals Over/Under, Match Result & Total Goals Over/Under, Correct Score, Double Chance and 1st Half Over/Under. Bets placed on coupons are excluded. Free bets, boosts, cashed out bets, perm bets or bets where there are less than 5 legs for any reason are ineligible. T&Cs apply, 18+. #ad
Insurance on All Leagues (5+)

Ladbrokes' offer is available on all football matches from all leagues as long as each leg has odds of 1/10 or greater and the acca's combined odds are at least 3/1. The maximum refund is £10 and is applied if one selection loses on acca's with 5 or more teams.

Pre-match win-draw-win, both teams to score, match result and BTTS, correct score and total goals over/under bets only. Two per customer per day.

18+, UK & Ireland customers only. Minimum odds per selection of 1/10, minimum combined odds of 3/1. Applies to Match Result, Both Teams to Score, Match Result and Both Teams to Score, Correct Score, Over/Under Total Goals or 2up&win markets. Max two free bets per customer per day, applies to first two accas placed. Free bet credited within 24 hours, valid for 7 days. T&Cs apply.

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All Markets (5+)

This offer not only applies to the 90 minute match outcome but 5-fold plus accumulators on all pre-game football markets. A free bet to the value of your stake will be returned if one selection costs you your bet. The maximum refund is £20, min odds 1/5 per leg. Bets must be placed and settled on the same day, one per customer per day.

18+. Selected sports. Applies to first unique Acca. Specials/boosts/BOG/free bets (FB)/promotions won't qualify. Min stake £/€0.05. Boost: Max bonus £/€1,000 per Acca. Min 3 legs. Min odds 1/5 per leg. Only win part eligible for E/W Acca. Insurance: Min 5 legs. Min odds 1/5 per leg. Max FB £/€20 per Acca, FB/cashed out/void bets won't qualify. Acc & Payment restrictions. T&Cs apply. #ad

Football Accumulator Bonuses

If you’re particularly confident in your acca then you may want to look at the opposite type of promotion – bonus winnings on your accas. The bonus is usually as a percentage of your regular win, and based on the number of legs, so the more selections you have, the bigger your bonus. We go into this type of offer in more details on our accumulator bonus page.

Other Sport Insurance Offers

Whilst it is true that more of these kinds of promotion are for football than any other sport, there are a number of them that involve other sports as well – either singularly (eg: Darts or Golf) or as a catch all ‘Any Sport’ offer.

All Sports Markets Acca Insurance (3+ Legs)

Your accumulator insurance will cover all sports markets both pre-match and in-play here. A three-fold or more acca will qualify you for a free bet up to £20 if only one leg loses. Minimum odds per selection of 1/5.

18+. Selected sports. Applies to first unique Acca. Specials/boosts/BOG/free bets (FB)/promotions won't qualify. Min stake £/€0.05. Boost: Max bonus £/€1,000 per Acca. Min 3 legs. Min odds 1/5 per leg. Only win part eligible for E/W Acca. Insurance: Min 5 legs. Min odds 1/5 per leg. Max FB £/€20 per Acca, FB/cashed out/void bets won't qualify. Acc & Payment restrictions. T&Cs apply. #ad

In addition to these there may also be sport or event specific offers that crop up around major happenings in the sporting calendar, such as the Rugby World cup. To see these, as well as other promotions for the event, head over to the relevant page in our event section.

Common Terms & Conditions to Watch Out For

As with any betting offer, it’s important to understand both what you need to do to be able to get it, and what things you mustn’t do if you want to claim. Below we’ve covered some of the more common restrictions and requirements, but each bookie or betting site will have their own set of T&C’s so make sure you check the specific terms of the promotion you’re claiming.

  1. Number of Legs – All of the promos listed above have a minimum number of legs (usually 4 or 5), and the odd one or two have a maximum number as well. In order to be eligible for the money back you need to make sure your acca has enough selections, but not too many.
  2. Void Bets – When a match is abandoned for any reason, that leg of the acca is often considered void and effectively taken out of the bet. This is important when considering the number of legs – for example, if your 4-leg acca has a void selection, it may be considered a 3-leg acca which is no longer eligible for the money back.
  3. Set Markets, Leagues or Sports – Many bookies will restrict their acca offers to a specific market (such as ‘match odds’ or ‘both teams to score’), league (eg: Premier League) or sport (eg: football). If such a restriction is in place all of the selections in the acca must follow this rule, regardless of the number of legs.
  4. Minimum Odds – The final term to look out for relate to the minimum odds which can be given either per leg or for the acca as a whole. Not all offers have a minimum odds requirement, but plenty do.

What Is Acca Insurance & How Does It Work?

Question Mark on Chalkboard

As accumulator betting continues to grow in the sports betting industry, bookmakers have been looking at ways in which they can entice their punters to keep on betting. After all, it’s become almost synonymous with the ‘everyday bettor’ to place an accumulator bet of some sort most weeks, whether that be on a selection of football matches or simply a multiple of horse racing bets.

One of the ways in which bookmakers try to lure in punters is by offering Acca insurance. A relatively simple promotion that means that if one leg of your accumulator bet loses which then makes your whole accumulator bet lose, the bookmaker will refund your original stake.

The whole process is very simple. The bookmaker will highlight how many games they are willing to allow you to lose from your accumulator bet as well as the percentage of your stake you will have returned should you trigger the insurance. After that it’s just a case of betting on the right markets and crossing your fingers.

Number of Legs

As with all promotions of this type, there are certain rules that you will need to be aware of. Whilst the guidance listed here is general to the industry, your bookmaker may vary slightly, so it’s always worth checking with them before placing these types of bets.

The first thing that you should be aware of is the number of games that you need to have in your accumulator bet to qualify for the insurance. The general standard will be around 5+, but there are some bookies that require you to have 6 or more selections. If you have less than this number, you’re bet will not be eligible for this promotion.

Eligible Bets

You will also need to be aware of what leagues and markets you can bet on to qualify for acca insurance. For example, some bookmakers will limit this to only the W-D-W market for football bets or won’t include each way bets for horse racing. Others might have any selections from the entire sportsbook or where you can only include markets from games in certain leagues.

It’s important to make sure that your acca only includes bets that are eligible because a single leg from a non-permitted market, league or match will make the accumulator no longer be eligible for the offer. It doesn’t matter how many eligible legs are included either, if you need five legs from the match odds market of Premier League matches and you include seven but also throw in one from a Championship match, the whole acca ends up out of the window.

Acca Offer Terms Accumulator Legs Bet Qualifies?
5+ Any Football Four Premier League + One Championship Yes
5+ Premier League Only Four Premier League + One Championship No
5+ Premier League Only Five Premier League Yes
5+ Premier League Only Five Premier League + One Championship No
5+ Any Football Five Premier League + One Horse Race No

Void Bets and Acca Insurance

The lower limit on the number of games required to trigger acca insurance is very important for any games or markets that might become void because these legs are removed from your acca for purposes of the offer.

For example, let’s say you bet on 5 games with a bookmaker that is offering acca insurance for bets that have 5 or more games included. One of the matches gets abandoned due to inclement weather and the market eventually turns void. This means this selection will be removed from your acca and then you will be left with a 4-fold bet. Thus, not meeting the requirements for the original 5+ selections asked from the bookmaker to qualify for acca insurance.

In the table below you can see the impact that void legs can have on eligibility for a 5+ leg accumulator insurance offer:

Original No of Legs Number of Void Legs Remaining Legs 5+ Acca Insurance
5 0 5 Yes
5 1 4 No
5 2 3 No
6 1 5 Yes
6 2 4 No
7 1 6 Yes
7 2 5 Yes

Maximum Stake

The bookmaker will also likely limit the amount that can be claimed from the acca insurance. This will be in correlation to the amount that you originally stake on the bet. Usually most betting sites will match your stake up to anything from £20 – £50. If you wager more than this amount, generally you will still able to claim the acca insurance, but only the maximum set out by the bookmaker will be paid back and the rest of your stake will be deemed a lose. It’s also worth noting that the payout will likely be in the form of a free bet that equals your deposit, rather than cash.

Acca insurance normally can’t be claimed on bets that have been cashed out. So, you wont be able to cash out a bet that has 4 from 5 selections winning, claim your winnings from the cash out and claim the acca insurance. The same goes for in-play bets, where you create an acca from the in-play betting section.

Examples

To help you better understand how it all works we’ve created some examples of both successful and unsuccessful acca insurance bets, as well as one that involves a void leg.

Successful Acca Insurance

We find a bookmaker that is offering acca insurance from any sport, any market and any league from around the world; basically any accumulator bet. All they ask is that we have 5 or more selections and the maximum they will pay out for insurance is £50.

We decide that we want to keep it relatively simple and bet on 5 home wins from the upcoming Premier League fixtures, with the prices listed as follows:

  1. Arsenal @ 1.25
  2. Bournemouth @ 1.80
  3. Man City @ 1.44
  4. Stoke @ 1.95
  5. West Brom @ 4.75

The odds for this acca are 30.01 and we stake £50 on this bet to potentially return £1,500.52. At full time we have 4 wins (Arsenal, Bournemouth, Man City, Stoke) and 1 loss (West Brom):

  1. Arsenal – WIN
  2. Bournemouth – WIN
  3. Man City – WIN
  4. Stoke – WIN
  5. West Brom – LOSE

As we have only lost one leg and matched all other criteria, we would be able to claim on the offer and get our £50 returned in the form of a free bet.

Unsuccessful Acca Insurance

Let’s use the same example for our unsuccessful bet; so the bookmaker includes same rules, the stake remains the same and the selections remain the same.

This time we have 3 wins from our picks (Arsenal, Bournemouth and Man City) with 2 loses (Stoke and West Brom):

  1. Arsenal – WIN
  2. Bournemouth – WIN
  3. Man City – WIN
  4. Stoke – LOSE
  5. West Brom – LOSE

As the rules clearly stipulate that they will only offer insurance if just 1 leg lets you down, then this bet will not qualify for acca insurance and we would lose our bet in its entirety.

Ineligible Due to Void

For our final example we’ll take the same acca, but this time in addition to one leg losing, one has been made void:

  1. Arsenal – VOID
  2. Bournemouth – WIN
  3. Man City – WIN
  4. Stoke – WIN
  5. West Brom – LOSE

In this bet the acca insurance would not pay out even though there is only one loss. The reason for this is that the void bet has reduced the number of eligible legs from five to four. Because the offer only applies to accas with five or more legs, it is no longer eligible for the promotion. However, if a sixth leg had been added the bet would have still been eligible for the offer despite the fact that a match had been made void.